Sandra Jansen makes bid to lead Alberta Progressive Conservative party

An outspoken member of the legislature says she will pull no punches as a contender in the Progressive Conservative leadership contest.

Calgary-North West MLA Sandra Jansen, who had been widely expected to run, confirmed Wednesday that she will be the fifth candidate in the race for Tory leader.

Jansen has been one of the most vocal critics within PC ranks of former Calgary Conservative MP Jason Kenney, who has defined the race so far with his platform to merge the PCs and Wildrose in a new “Conservative Party of Alberta” in an attempt to defeat the NDP government.

She has said she would not serve under Kenney if he won the leadership and has suggested that he could be disqualified from the race by party rules that bar candidates who would harm the PC party.

In an interview, the 52-year-old Jansen said she won’t change her ways on the campaign trail.

“Every time I take part in a conversation I’m going to reiterate how important it is to adhere to our Progressive Conservative principles,” she said. “That’s important to me and I’m going to keep saying that, because that’s what I’m hearing from people.

“The conversation isn’t about negativity. It’s about standing our ground and saying, ‘We are Progressive Conservatives. We value the “progressive” and we’re not ready to sell that out.’”

Jansen, a former television journalist, was first elected as an MLA in 2012 and served in Alison Redford’s cabinet as the associate minister of family and community safety.

Known for her advocacy of LGBTQ and other social issues, Jansen has also taken heat for her ties to Redford, who resigned in controversy in 2014.

Jansen has also been criticized in conservative circles for her support of Liberal candidates Kent Hehr and Nirmala Naidoo in the last federal election. Naidoo is now working on Jansen’s campaign, as is former Redford strategist Stephen Carter.

In a Facebook post, Kenney welcomed Jansen into the race, saying she will be “a passionate advocate for her views.”

But Kenney also took aim at the MLA, accusing Jansen of “frequently” voting with the NDP and supporting the federal Liberals.

“We must not go back to the divisive, failed politics of the Redford era,” he said in his online post.

The Tory leadership will be decided in a delegated convention next March.

Vermilion-Lloydminster MLA Richard Starke, former MLA Donna Kennedy-Glans and Calgary lawyer Byron Nelson — all of whom also oppose Kenney’s unite-the-right appeal — have also announced they are running.

Mount Royal University political scientist Lori Williams said Jansen will be an important player in the race given her willingness to confront Kenney, but it remains to be seen whether she can gather enough support to win.

Williams said the number of candidates opposing the merger idea is an advantage for opponents of Kenney in the early days of the campaign as they get the message out but could be a drawback as voting gets underway.

“I actually expect there to be a bit of a coalition among the candidates who are in favour of keeping the PCs and the Wildrose separate,” she said. “I think there may need to be a little bit of culling of candidates in that camp in order to avoid splitting the vote for now.”

But Jansen said she was not concerned about dividing the vote, noting that the delegated convention allows for movement of supporters between candidates.

She said she is not in the race simply to oppose uniting the right but wants to run a policy-based campaign emphasizing issues such as the need for increasing natural gas-fired power generation in the province.

“Let’s talk about the things that actually define a political party going forward in terms of what it can do for the province,” said Jansen.

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One month into building a new political party and MLA Derek Fildebrandt is discovering it’s not as easy at it looks. Not that building a new party has ever looked easy. Except perhaps to Fildebrandt who announced last month he was interim leader of the Freedom Conservative Party. I’m not sure if he expected thankful voters to stampede to his door, hoist him up in their thankful arms and parade him around the town square. Or maybe he at least expected some press coverage that didn’t in some way mock his checkered political past. He got neither.